Demi Ademuson: Never settle down (30 Days, 30 Voices)

moving-forward

“Move. Move as often as you can as fast as you can.”

Not sure where that comes from. It might be someone famous or a fictional character in my mind.  It doesn’t really matter though all that matters is that the quote has been stuck in my head for a while and I think I finally grasp what it means in its entirety. Its not one about moving and travelling the world per se. What the author was trying to say is never settle, keep moving, keep learning, keep growing keep sharing. In the words of Steve Job’s “stay hungry…” This paradox of constant change resonates deeply in my life choices. For me it is really important not to be stagnant. I have always had this incredible sense of urgency, I want do so many things at once believing that it will all make come together sometime in the future, after all the journey is the reward. So when I had the idea to start a company, the fact that I had just finished A-Levels and I was on my way to University didn’t even cast a shadow of a doubt in my mind. I was sure about it. At the time I had just started getting interested in fashion and the role that Africa has to play in shaping the future of fashion.  African prints were just becoming mainstream and I really wanted to be a part of this movement.  I had friends back home who were into fashion design and I wanted to help them get their creations seen by consumers all over the world.

That summer, while my mates were wondering about their A level results,  I was having preliminary meetings with a friend about this new business Idea for an online retailer for “African fashion designers”. We met regularly at Roberts Café in VI and mapped out our plans over countless cups of coffee and the occasional not-so-tasty plate of suya (nothing beats glover court suya, just saying).  After we explored our options, we decided to go for this venture, gathering every penny we had to our name. It was that summer that Malakh & Sco was conceived.

The result came out and I did pretty well, but having been rejected from my first two choices, I started at University in Birmingham (UK) majoring in Economics that fall. Without disrespecting the Institution, it’s current students and Alumni; I felt I should have been in a better University. It didn’t help that two of my best friends (the co-founder of Malakh & Sco Included) where in the two Great Cambridge Universities (Harvard and MIT). I was frustrated, I had to move so instead of sulking, I spent the bulk of my first year Working on Malakh & Sco, I was trying to compensate for my short comings in academically by creating this awesome company that will make me a celebrated entrepreneur. I was breaking my back to make the company work not because of the original reasons I set out to do it but because I wanted validation. I wanted to prove that I could do something great.

Lesson 1: great things don’t happen for greatness sake. If you are true to your passions great things will happen.

I worked hard all year, picking black cotton (Tupac reference) and nine months later we still had no company, no designers, no website. When I got back to Nigeria, I made it my mission to talk to as many fashion designers I could find, and it was the time spent with these designers that reminded me of why I we set out to do this in the first place. It wasn’t about me at all, it wasn’t about validation, Malakh & Sco was about African fashion. I was re-energized, we recruited designers and built the website and launched it in April the following year.

I was in my second year of University, working fulltime for Malakh & Sco and working as a fulltime student. Strains started to show; I fell from a pretty good student to an almost average student. My parents began to worry, stories of people who have dreams and failed started to haunt me. “I’ll hate to be that guy who tells folks, I could have been…if only I had done.” That voice that keeps telling you that voice that keeps telling you, “what makes you think your so special” was whispering a resounding chorus directly into the ears of my mind and a was giving in to his lullabies. I almost quit before the company was two months old.

I was convinced that I couldn’t achieve what I wanted. Added to that I didn’t get any summer internships ( a near requisite for a graduate job in the UK) I am sat there thinking “there goes my safety net.” Things weren’t as awesome as I thought they will be, the company was doing below average, school was below average. Man, I was ready to check out of it all. I had to move, I had to change my mind frame, so I started reading books, fiction, biographies, changed my itunes library, started watching different films; I did anything to get me out of that current state and it somewhat worked. That summer I spent time working more on this business and picking up skills like website programming, Business law fundamentals, Accounting, Invesment appraisals and stuff that I think will be beneficial for a boot strapped company.  I also spent time working with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation department of my university, exploring ways of getting more international students involved in Entrepreneurship. In the end, I felt like it was a successful summer (even though I missed out on the potential £10,000 compensation package that my interning classmates got).

Lesson 2: sometimes you have to remind yourself that you do not need to do what everyone else is doing.

I am in my last year at University, and early in my first semester I was talking to a friend about a photo shoot Malakh & Sco had planned. He asked “what culture are you trying to portray in the photo shoot” and that really hit me. I realised that I had no idea about the culture behind African fashion. I had to move…again. So this year has been about learning everything about the culture of African fashion, from the fabrics to the personalities, to the patterns of the clothes, from the history to the present to mapping out a road in the future. It has led me to musical adventures and artistic journeys and I have fallen in love with African abstract and contemporary Art; old juju and highlife music. As a company, we are more culture focused now. We love fashion but we understand that fashion is an expression of culture and if you take that away from it, you are left with coloured clothing.  Regarding school, still working hard as ever because even the famous college dropouts (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg) attended the top Universities and that is a hell of a plan B.

To wrap this up with intellectual Jargon I will say keep moving and you will find that even if you do not think outside the box, you will have the power to define the confinements and shape (yes shape) of that box.

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Demi Ademuson is a  3rd year Bsc Economics at the University of Birmingham. Co-founder Malakh & Sco… bringing the best of African fashion and contemporary Art to the world. www.malakhandsco.com @malakhandsco

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30 Days 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians to share their stories and experiences with other young Nigerians, within our borders and beyond, to inspire and motivate them.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Comments (2)

  1. Am so inspired.Move,move move!never be stagnant.keep at the good work,dear.

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